Oops: Perry Botches Kim Jong Il's Name

[many a good man]

(Newser) – It's an easy mistake to make, but looks like Rick Perry's campaign was the only one to make it. An email from the Perry campaign yesterday about the death of Kim Jong Il repeatedly referred to the late North Korean leader as Kim Jong the Second. The upper-case I and a lower-case l next to each other probably tripped up a Perry PR person, but "Kim Jong Il was a regular old tyrant, not a monarch, which is probably something a presidential candidate (or at least the team surrounding him) should know," writes Dino Grandoni at the Atlantic. Perry's gaffe has precedent. When he was running for president, George W. Bush called the leader "Kim Jong Two," the New Yorker notes.
http://www.newser.com/story/135770/oops-perry-botches-kim-jong-ils-name.html


I think both Bush and Perry actually called him King Jong the Second.

[treestar]

1. No President needs to know who is the king of Uz-beki-beki-stan-stan

[trusty elf]

2. That made me think of an old Ray-Gun gaffe.

He referred to the then President of Liberia, Samuel K. Doe as "Chairman Moe".

[izquierdista]

3. Dunning Kruger effect

Look it up, it's on Google. People who are too stupid to know they are stupid. And of course, they appeal to people too stupid to know that the candidate they like is stupid.

[HopeHoops]

4. "Il" is his first name, from our perspective, as is "Un".

Kim Jong is the family name. It's sort of Yoda-like, but that's how Korean names work. Besides, even if it WAS a number - it would be "first", not "second" if I recall correctly. But that definitely isn't what it means. Literally it is "Il of the Kim Jong family" and "Un of the Kim Jong family".

But you can't expect a dumbfuck like Perry to bother to check on such things. San-serif fonts don't help the matter, but it's a little disturbing that so called "presidential material" wouldn't have heard the name pronounced as "Kim Jong Ill" (extra "l" intentional for pronunciation purposes).

[kestrel91316]

5. Kim is the family name. The patriarch and original dictator was

Kim Il Sung.

[HopeHoops]

6. Yes, Kim is the base family name. There's no connection to the "Kim Il" part other than "Kim".

We helped a Korean family acclimate to our culture (like registering vehicles and shit). They didn't speak much English. We taught them English as they taught us Korean. One MAJOR complication was that the wife's first and last "names" were the same (to protect them, assume "Min Jong Min" and the husband's name was "Min Jong Yu". In US terms, that meant Mr. and Mrs. Min Jong, with Min and Yu as the first names. It was a MAJOR pain in the ass since their passports used the Korean forms and registering a Min with a Yu as a married couple was nearly impossible to explain to the government workers. I made up those names to avoid using their real ones, but you get the picture.

But what is really bothersome is that somebody running for president could be so out of touch with what's going on in the world as to not know how to pronounce another leader's name. It's like Bush calling Africa a "country". These are not leaders, they are puppets.

My 16 year old daughter knows more about the world than most of the federal-office Republicans. We have some pretty intense discussions about world politics. My eldest is spending next semester in Budapest (second visit there) and she's very aware of what's going on. Seen much in the news about Vaclav Havel passing away? She and her roommate plan to visit Prague this spring and I warned her to keep an eye on the impact of that death. He still has a major following.

Most Americans seem to think we're the dominant country and every other country should be subservient. Perhaps that was true years back, but it isn't now - especially financially. Even the Euro is in crisis. There's a lot more that goes on than "Fuck it, We're Texas", and other self-centered regional attitudes. We do NOT need another president with no clue about the real world.

[kestrel91316]

7. OT: My nephew lived in Prague for a semester in college. Lovely city.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. And Perry is Chimp II

[MineralMan]

9. A good argument for fonts with serifs, I think.